This invention relates to pump followers of the type used in apparatus for dispensing viscous material from a drum.
A pump follower is a generally circular plate that is slidably mounted on a pump tube in a drum or bucket to facilitate pumping viscous materials from the drum or bucket. The follower is disposed above the viscous material and is adapted to sealingly engage the pump tube and the walls of the drum or bucket to maintain a pressure difference on opposing surfaces of the follower.
Followers are needed in a wide variety of sizes to accommodate different sizes of drums and buckets and to accommodate different sizes of pump tubes. Thus manufacturers must be prepared to manufacture a wide range of followers. The cost of tooling up and manufacturing these many different followers can be quite high. This is compounded by the costs of stocking those followers. Similarly, users of viscous materials must maintain a collection of followers for many sizes of pump tubes and drums encountered. This is not only expensive, but results in storage problems when the followers are not in use.